Hubbard - French POW in England during Napoleonic Wars

Re: Hubbard - French POW in England during Napoleonic Wars

Sorry for not being more specific about the records in National Archives Catalogue. Searching is not easy as unlike genealogical data on Ancestry and other web sites, records are not indexed with names to aid genealogists, but quite correctly from its original purpose the title of the documents. Even then the descriptions of the documents and more importantly their scope [not so easy to defend] often leaves much to be desired, making the ordering of specific items, pages or parts difficult to say the least, but that goes for the national archives of most countries.

The POWs at Norman Cross were held in the prison there so any surviving records will be held with files describing the prisons etc., rather than listed under the parole towns. There’s an online article in pdf format, that mentions the prison at Norman Cross [page 2] that may be of interest - http://www.cnrs-scrn.org/northern_mariner/vol06/tnm_6_4_17-2... . There is also a link to a lodge of the Masonic Order and French masons within the French prisoners, I’ve lost the link but it’s related to an article in the magazine in Masons Quarterly and some messages in response to it.

To find records associated with Norman Cross prison at the National Archives, from http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/search.asp enter Norman Cross, dates blank, department ADM and you’ll see 18 files, the first 16 of which are directly related. I found if you try and enter a wide range of dates for some reason ADM 103/628 isn’t returned. Once you know what you want, initially I expect the registers in ADM 103 you can limit the records returned by entering that dept code. Also note the titles in ADM 98 relating correspondence with an “agent” at Norman Cross, implying there were also parole prisoners there too.

None of these records can be viewed online and the registers for Norman Cross are in Dutch and French, depending on the register – click on the blue text to see what the documents are and the language.

If you can get to Kew you can use the entry to identify likely records to view on the premises, but I don’t think you can pre-order without a valid readers ticket [so take some ID if are going to visit].To order [or at least get an estimate of the cost] a copy any piece number or part of, select the item [say ADM 103/260] then click “ordering and viewing option” then click “order ..copy etc”. Now click “change” in “estimate options box” and select the format you want the copy > continue – that will take you back to the order screen. In the text box enter what you want to the copies to contain e.g. all pages with names beginning “H” or perhaps all pages listing surname Hubbard [more likely the French equivalent – Hubere/Hubert??] or maybe the whole thing [beware of large documents]. You can submit up to 5 piece numbers in one estimate request. Then sit back and wait for the response that will either be a cost for what you’ve ask for or a message telling you that is classed as research. If you cannot get to Kew yourself another alternative is the use a researcher – see https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/ scroll down to “paying for research” and follow instructions to see lists.